A Major League Baseball player was stabbed to death Monday in the Netherlands, police said.

Greg Halman, 24, was found dead just after 5 a.m. Monday in Rotterdam, a police spokeswoman said. Investigators arrested his 22-year-old brother, she said.

Halman played center field for the Seattle Mariners. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig issued a statement expressing his condolences to the team.

"The loss of a talented 24-year-old young man like Greg, amid such tragic circumstances, is painful for all of us throughout the game," Selig said.

Betra Dorrestijn, a spokeswoman for the Royal Baseball and Softball Union of the Netherlands, said Halman's family confirmed his death to the federation.

"We are shocked to hear that Gregory Halman has passed away," she said. "It is tragic that he should die at such a young age."

Halman was a federation member when he played baseball as a teenager for an amateur team in his hometown of Haarlem, just outside Amsterdam, before going to the United States to play, Dorrestijn said.

Halman made his Major League debut on September 23, 2010, and went on to play 44 games with the Seattle Mariners, Major League Baseball said. He finished the 2011 season with 20 hits, including two home runs, in 87 plate appearances, according to figures from Major League Baseball.

"I only knew Greg for a brief time, but I feel lucky that I had the chance to get to know him," Mariners Manager Eric Wedge said in a statement. "He was a fine young man with a bright future. Greg had a tremendous energy about him, both on and off the field, that I loved. This is just tragic. That's all I can think, that this is so tragic and sad."